We’re excitedly preparing to attend to Chicago-based events later this month. The first, Start-up Weekend, takes place June 
25-27 at the Illinois Technology Association. Here, aspiring entrepreneurs get together on Friday to come up with an idea, form teams to build it, and present at the end of the weekend. We love being around folks who are filled with ideas and just starting out (both Pamela and I are on the advisory board for Providence’s own Betaspring accelerator project) so I’m really looking forward to what the teams come up with.
We’re also hoping to sponsoring one attendee, so if you know some one in Chicago who wants to attend, let us know! Be warned, this person will receive our unconditional public support!
On June 26th, we’re also sponsoring Chicago’s first Freelance Camp. Freelance camp is an unconference environment where a bunch of people get together to learn from one another: in this case, people either working as freelancers or building products/services that support the freelance market.
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Tags: batchblue, chicago, Community, freelance camp, freshbooks, mailchimp, moo, small business web
It’s an endless summer for our contest winner & surfer girl Julia Weatherby. Photo by Gordon McGregor.
Our Endless Summer Contest was our most popular contest ever! Thanks to all who entered — we had a lot of really cute, inspired entries for what people would do with our new custom web form feature, learned a lot about what summer beverages people most enjoy, and have hard evidence that when it comes to ice cream, it’s best to not restrict oneself to a budget.
Like summer itself, the contest has to end, but this news more sweet than bitter because we’ve randomly selected our winner! Lucky Julia Weatherby, a photographer from one of our fave cities, Austin, Texas will soon be riding an IndoBoard in the comfort and safety of her own home. Julia tells us that she’s an active member of her local Surfrider Foundation chapter, so she’s super stoked about winning the IndoBoard! Who knew in a land-locked city that there was such an active surf scene? Julia is also both a MOO card customer and now a BatchBook customer, so her free business cards and free year of BatchBook will really come in handy.
Julia’s entry contained a link to her favorite movie of the summer, which she says inspires her as she trains for her fifth (!!!!!) triathlon. Go Julia – we definitely appreciate the clip’s sentiment…it IS all about performance!
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Tags: Contests, endless summer, moo
In honor of the upcoming National Small Business Week (May 18-22), BatchBlue is very pleased to announce our second annual Small Business Super Hero contest. This week and next, you can nominate yourself or someone else who is doing a super-human job of running a small business.
We’ve got some great prizes this year, including free account subscriptions and giveaways from us and some of our Small Business Web partners, a JetBlue gift card, a cool collection of business books in our small business starter library, t-shirts and more! Please see our contest page for complete information and the entry form. You can view last year’s winners here.
Next week, we’ll be featuring some of the BatchBlue staff‘s favorite small businesses every day on our blog. The contest winners will be announced on the blog on Tuesday, May 26th.
Don’t be shy — we know you’re doing good work out there! Let your Super Hero cape fly and show the world how cool it is to be a small business owner.
Tags: batchblue, Contests, mailchimp, moo, shoeboxed, small business, super hero
